


Dexterity

by kormantic



Category: Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Eugenides - Freeform, F/M, Feast Days, Friendship, King of Attolia, Romance, Temple Stories, Yuletide 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 15:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kormantic/pseuds/kormantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Costis needs to learn to stop lowering his point in third, Phresine tells a story, and Eugenides steals the very stars from the sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dexterity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sour_Idealist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/gifts).



It was the Feast of Moira, and in the Eddisian tradition, that signaled a festival of performances in her honor. Playwrights would showcase new works every night for seven days, and dedicate them to their patroness. A traveling troupe from the Continent had arrived in Attolia’s capital, hired to divert the queen and her new husband.

The royal couple had been together but half a year, and the Attolian people were still deciding how they felt about their king. In keeping with that uncertainty came a delegation of priestesses, bridling at the honors heaped upon Moira, a goddess of the old pantheon, and claiming their own Selene had been carelessly slighted.

The king, who had spoken with both his chief Eddesian and Attolian advisors, Ornon and Relius, about the possibilities of just such an audience, presented them with twelve silver mirrors, each the size of the decorative ponds that graced his gardens. The priestesses declared themselves mollified, going so far as to accept the royal invitation to the evening’s premier of a play entitled _The Graces_.

“It was written by a woman named Theridiidae. Surely you will support her in sisterhood,” he entreated with a winning smile.

“I have heard of your storied wit, Your Majesty,” replied Achaearanea, the eldest of the priestesses, in warning tones. Theridiidae, like Achaearanea, was one of three aspects of Araneae, goddess of spinning, cartography and prophecy, respectively.

“Ah, but what can match first-hand experience, Priestess?”

Achaearanea could not keep her eyes from straying to the wooden hand that ended the king’s right arm, and cleared her throat, plainly discomfited.

Interceding on behalf of her guests, the Queen spoke graciously from her throne beside the king.

“Please enjoy this evening’s entertainment, sybils, and may this be the first of many new traditions that will unite our people.”

The priestesses bowed to their Queen and left in a unit as crisply organized as any squad from the Guard, their attendants bearing the heavy mirrors on ahead. When they had left, the Queen inspected a torn nail on her right hand.

“Must you twit every visiting dignitary, My King?”

“I must not, if Ornon continues to reside in this hall. He has the lung capacity of an opera tenor. I do not think he stopped for breath during his last lecture for fully half an hour.” He took her hand, despite its imperfect manicure, and kissed it solemnly. As her hand had lifted, her sleeve had slipped back, revealing a livid bruise just above the hollow of her wrist. He kissed that as well, with a certain reverence.

“It is not a fitting trade. Poor Costis will be chairbound until summer,” said his Queen, peering out into the courtyard where Phresine and Ileia were fussing over the young lieutenant, who was indeed in a wheeled chair with his braced leg outstretched before him.

“Poor Costis needs to learn to stop lowering his point in third. And to stop underestimating you. Especially at the head of the eastern staircase.”  Not that he would ever have admitted it, but his heart had been in his throat when Costis had dodged the Queen’s thrust during last evening’s clandestine sparring practice and mis-stepped, backing into the railing at such an angle and with such force that he’d flipped over entirely before falling hard to the landing below.

“Might I apply to _you_ for a refund?” Costis had managed through clenched teeth, referring to the coins he’d dedicated at the altar of Eugenides. The king, the god’s namesake, had promised Costis he’d never die of a fall.

“It’s a clean break and you didn’t die even a little, so I don’t see that you have anything to complain about,” Eugenides had replied blithely.

“I thought the point of the exercise was to _tame_ my temper,” the Queen continued with some chagrin.

“The point of the exercise is to teach you to defend yourself. If it also gives you vent for a long day’s frustration, so much the better. And besides, all that... _activity_ brings a glint to your eye that I find very becoming.”

He was delighted to see a flush of color grace his wife’s cheek.

“Speaking of activity, I hope your bruises will not cause you any late nights.” He stroked a finger along her arm under the heavily embroidered bell of her sleeve, pleased to note her shiver before she shook his hand away.

“I hope any bruises you earn with your impertinence cause you _many_ late nights, and lend you time to reflect upon your imprudent ways,” she said dryly.

*

Costis, veteran of several battles, and an inveterate tree-climber since the age of five, had somehow never managed to break a bone before his graceless sparring session (and extreme reluctance to actually strike his Queen) had resulted in a fractured tibia. Thanks to Petrus, the court physician (and, he sighed to himself, his Queen), he was swathed in plaster to the knee, and trying to enjoy Phresine’s lemon ices, which were already old favorites of his, and Ileia’s rather surprisingly devoted attentions, which were new and therefore a bit unsettling. Of all the Queen’s attendants, Ileia was by far the loveliest. However, much like the Queen, she was rather famous for her cool looks and her cutting remarks. Apparently Costis had become so pitiable that even _her_ heart had softened to him. He was not yet ready to be glad of that.

His right leg was still swollen, and his toes looked odd and mottled to his own eyes. There was a persistent dull throbbing ache, which, while not unbearable, was eminently capable of keeping him from napping in the spring sun.

“You will have pride of place in the theater this evening,” Phresine smiled. “That at least is some good to come of your accident.” Her pointed look toward Ileia’s retreating back implied that something else might come of it, too. Costis tried not to blush.

“I have never been to a play.  My father and sister will be arriving today for the festival.  It is their first visit to the city and Thalia will be very excited.”

Like his broken leg, his family’s visit was also due to the Queen. She had sent them an invitation that morning by messenger, as well as a carriage to bring them back.

“You have earned their holiday and your own ten times over,” Eugenides had said, waving away Costis’s gratitude. “When the bone has begun to knit, I shall make you a present of a fine little carriage and whatever suitable beast we can harness to it, and your sister shall take you home and stuff you full of peeled grapes until you are sufficiently healed.”

Costis had only been able to nod, while trying to look dignified. His dignity was quite overtaken when Eugenides continued, fishing something out of the deep, embroidered pockets of his coat.

“Oh, and this came for you. No need to look guilty, it is quite separate from our attempts to bribe you into silence for your injury.”

It was a slim, handsome, flat-backed watch, deceptively heavy for such a small and neatly made thing.

“I had my brother Stenides make it for you.”

It was easily the loveliest thing he had ever owned, and save the Queen, almost the loveliest thing he had ever seen. Eugenides coughed politely, pretending not to see the water standing in Costis’s eye, and twitched a surreptitious finger, indicating that Costis should turn the watch over. It was engraved in letters so tiny they could hardly be read, and they spiraled around the platinum lozenge like a coil of rope: _If this watch is only half so steady as you, good Costis, it shall be true until the end of time._

Eugenides had submitted to Costis’s embrace with an elaborately resigned sigh that disguised his genuine affection for his friend not at all.

Costis was currently wearing his watch strapped to his left wrist, and idly wondering where he’d keep it when he was on duty.

“I love the theater,” said Phresine. "I am sure you will, too.” She brought him an additional pillow and refilled his wine cup before seating herself under a parasol beside him. “My mother was an actress, before she married. Like the king, she was Eddesian, and she named me Phresine Moira, after her goddess.  So today is my feast day, too.”  

“Prosperity to you.” Even if her hair had not been graying, Costis knew better than to ask a woman her age. “Did you ever wish to join the stage?”

“I do not think my temperament would have been suited to an actor’s life. I did think of writing plays, once.”

“That must be why you’re so good at telling stories.”

“Am I, now?” said Phresine coyly.

“You are,” Costis assured her. “You will tell me one, won’t you?  I’m half-mad already with all this... _sitting_.”

“You men of action would do well to learn to keep still now and again.  Read a play or a history.”

Costis did his best to look pathetic, and whatever his expression, Phresine laughed and relented.

 

Eugenides and the Leopard of Atef

Moira, the messenger of the gods, is goddess in her own right of merchants, playwrights, actors and musicians, scribes, and of course messengers. She is the goddess of knowledge and memory, song and story, of naming, of record keeping, and debts owed.  She knows the names of every man and woman born, and the fate of their souls.

Her sister Atef is the goddess of architecture and arithmetic, reading and law, and of truth and judgment.  It is she who determines the worth of mens’ souls, and only Hephestia can intercede in her decisions.  

Their father, the sky, was fond of them both and gave them each a noble mount: to Moira, a golden lion with shoulders as high as a temple roof, and to Atef, a sleek silver leopard as long as two crocodiles set nose to tail.  

It so happened that the god Eugenides found it useful to consult the scrolls of Atef’s library from time to time, and that while he might take whatever caught his fancy to read at his leisure, he was fond of Atef and always returned whatever he borrowed. Atef pretended to disdain his teasing, while noting that Eugenides restored any and all pilfered items faithfully, though he might take his time about it, and that other gods, even his sister Hephestia, might lament fine clothes, charmed musical instruments and blessed amulets with no hope of seeing them again.  In turn, it was Atef who trained him in the arts of architecture, and who helped him realize the practical value of mathematics.

One day, she noticed that her leopard, Niophilis, had left the library to hunt and had not returned at the morning star, as was his habit. After several days had passed, Atef sent a dove to her sister, asking if she might borrow Leonemaeus and ride out to find her own missing mount. Moira sent Leonemaeus, with his golden saddle upon his back, and a message for Atef carried in his mouth: _Ask for Eugenides at the hall of Meditrina._

Puzzled, but thinking his sharp eyes would only help in her hunt, she rode to the grand estate of her cousin, Meditrina, goddess of wine, love and medicine.

When they arrived, a servant came out to catch Leonemaeus’s bridle and help the goddess down from the saddle. Although he seemed young, his hair was as silver as the moon, and his eyes were golden. He did not announce her to Meditrina, and only gestured for Atef to continue on into the main hall.

There she found Eugenides, asleep on the softest pillows, among a litter of wine cups and open scrolls. Before she could wake him, little laughing Meditrina appeared, with a jug and two wine cups.  

“Drink with me cousin, and we shall let him rest a bit longer.”

So Atef drank Meditrina’s new wine and explained her errand.

Meditrina looked unsurprised, and at last called for Eugenides to come before her.

Eugenides woke instantly, and as he was not mortal, did not suffer the sore head you or I would have after three jugs of Meditrina’s unwatered wine. And yet when he saw Atef, he looked wretched indeed.

“Dear cousin, do not look so distraught. Niophilis has gone away, and I am come to ask your help to find him.”

“You need search no longer, for he met you at the door,” sighed Eugenides. At her look of consternation, he continued. “Atef, I ask only your forgiveness. I asked Niophilis to bear me to the stars. Eurus sent a storm wraith of the south winds against us, and Niophilis fell from the sky, gravely injured.”

“And so Eugenides brought him to me,” said Meditrina. “I gave him a protean draught, that he might sleep and change and heal.  That is why he does not speak.  He has only the seeming of a man.”

“Will he live, Meditrina? And you, thief, why would Eurus send a storm wraith against you? Did you steal from him as well?” Her anxiety for her beloved Niophilis made her speak sharply, and Eugenides flinched as though she’d struck a blow.

“I was only going to collect stars to make a necklace,” he said softly. “Eurus was jealous and moved to thwart me.”

“And why should Eurus be jealous of you?”

Meditrina covered her cousin’s hand with her own.

“Many times has Eurus come to me begging a philtre that might make you look on him with new eyes. He is sick with love for you, and seeing that Eugenides is a favorite of yours, he acted in anger.”

“His anger was severe,” admitted Eugenides, “and so, I am sorry to say, is Niophilis’s wound.”

Meditrina nodded solemnly, and called for Niophilis to come before her. When he did so, she gave him three drops of seawater charmed with her words, and he fell to the cushioned floor, asleep. While he slept, he shifted, until he was a leopard once more. When she saw his injury, Atef wept, and Eugenides stood by, repentant and downcast. Her leopard’s tail had been severed at the haunch, his beauty ruined and his balance lost. How could he fly now?

She dried her tears and unwound the knotted cord she kept on her wrist and wrapped it around her sleeping leopard’s neck. He shrank down until he was small enough to carry in her hand, and she called for Leonemaeus. She would not look at Eugenides, and he retired for the evening to the chamber Meditrina keeps for him. Meditrina assured her cousin that Niophilis would live, and spoke quietly to her on Eugenides’s behalf.

“You are angry now, and right to be, but let your anger pass.  Eurus is not the only one sick with love for you.”

Atef was still greatly roused, but heard her cousin’s words and embraced her before taking her leave.

The next evening, Niophilis, returned to his natural size, woke from his protean sleep. But he did not leave to hunt. Nor did he leave the evening after that, and Atef could count his ribs and grew frightened for him. She sent for Veles and asked him for a bullock. Niophilis ignored it, and Atef despaired.

The third night, Eugenides appeared in her library.

“I do not know if it will help him fly, but while Niophilis was healing in Meditrina’s hall, I sent for Sethlans.” He held out a chain of stars that dazzled and sizzled and burned bright though your eye closed to them. “Sethlans finished his work and I bring it to you now.”

Niophilis, who had always been fond of Eugenides, accepted the tail Sethlans had fashioned and leaped into the air. When he had satisfied himself that he was well and fit, he bounded away, but not before swallowing Veles’s bullock in one bite. If you look up to the night sky, you may see him hunting, his long tail of stars streaming behind him.

“I had hoped to return Niophilis to you whole,” said Eugenides. “That is why I did not tell you what happened, though I knew you would look for him.”

“While you did take Niophilis without my permission, you could not have foreseen Eurus’s actions. If Niophilis has forgiven you, I suppose I cannot remain angry.”

“I had intended the necklace for you,” Eugenides explained, “but I cannot deny that it looks better on Niophilis.”

When she laughed instead of taking offense, Eugenides stole a kiss. And like everything he took from Atef, he gave it back. Atef, who would one day be his wife and the mother of his children, graciously accepted it.

*

Between audiences, the king had been polishing his wooden hand with a soft oiled cloth, and the pleasant scent of almonds pervaded the chamber. The hand was newly made, and finely sanded, but both unpainted and unvarnished. It had been carved from an orange tree, and was unusual among the king’s false hands in that, rather than being curled in a loose closed fist, the fingers were positioned such that the king could salute benedictions: the first two fingers were extended, while the thumb folded over the other two.

Now that the priestesses of Selene had left, Eugenides moved to the door, and opened it to speak a few words to the guards outside.  Closing it again, he grinned wickedly and silently threw the bolt.

Attolia felt her face color once more, but a raised eyebrow was her only effort to forestall him.

He drew her to her feet and crowded close, his right arm at her waist, guiding her for a few dancing steps so that he ended on the raised throneroom dais behind her, bringing him to her height, even as he loosened the stays of her gown.

“I would almost miss the pins in your hair, but I confess, I am very satisfied with my work,” he said of her new crown of complex braids. It kept her hair off her neck while she trained with Costis (“Frankly, you both need the lessons, and you are unlikely to come up against _another_ one-handed antagonist,” Eugenides had decreed, when she had asked why she could not train in secret with only Eugenides.), and no longer offered an easy handle for an opponent, as the Mede empire grew restive and no doubt planned to send new assassins against her.

Eugenides, she was unsurprised to learn, was as clever at dressing hair as he was at everything else.

“It comes of having two older sisters,” he explained as he tucked her hair into elaborate knots. He had used the clockwork hand his brother Stenides had sent him as a belated wedding gift. Eugenides was able to click through various natural poses with the turn of two keys on the cuff, and the webbing of straps that attached it to his arm looped over his shoulder. The last setting was a spring-locked grip, as inexorable as death. That setting and the harness straps had been designed to support his weight so he would again have two hands to climb with. Eugenides never wore it to court, deeming it only for “special occasions”. One such occasion was the dexterity it afforded him while braiding her hair.

“Phoebe was very exacting. She would approve, however.” And he’d shown her the result in a little hand mirror. For a moment, Attolia hardly recognized herself. She looked... younger, surprised and determined. “You shall be everything Qamaits could wish in a recruit,” he had promised her, referring to the goddess of war whose female soldiers were renowned for their skill and their fury.

“Eugenides,” she whispered in warning, as she felt his hand skim under the fabric of her gown.  As she had expected, he ignored her, humming into her hair, and curling his warm left hand against the roundness of her bare hip. When she felt his _other_ hand slip low, grazing the top of her thigh, she reached to stop it, but did not quite seize his wrist. The hand continued to move, gliding past the fine fabrics of her smallclothes and she bit her lip, at once aflame with sudden, if reluctant, longing and agitated to the point of anger.  He moved lower yet.

“Gen!” It was a suppressed shout of real distress, and while Eugenides held very still, he did not remove his hand.

“I assure you, Irene, that before last equinox, I spent _every_ night reflecting upon my imprudent ways,” he said lightly.

She made a noise as if he'd slapped her. He had never yet so directly referred to the misery the loss of his hand had caused him, or the night of their wedding, when they’d wept together in each other’s arms.

Her voice was low and thick with grief when she said, "We shall never get past it." How can we? Attolia thought, anguished. Although Eugenides was so graceful at distraction that she often did forget he'd lost a hand, Eugenides himself never would.

"I will tell you a secret known only to Eddis, Ornon and the gods. Well, and poor Costis," he said, leaning hard against her and nipping her ear. "I make a ridiculous king with one hand, and you may despair of me, but I’d be no king at all if I had two."

Attolia thought of his ingenuity, his shrewd insight, of his surprising diplomacy when he thought the occasion warranted it, and thought then of the boy who had stolen Hamiathes's Gift. He'd been filthy, but so wild and proud, even with a sword wound through his shoulder, that she had wondered that her soldiers could hold him. That boy could not have been yoked to the responsibility of the crown any other way.

"I do not know that I could have made such a bargain, knowing what it would cost me." He kissed the warm, shadowed space behind her ear. "But I am well content, at this moment."  He kissed her again, and she trembled. "And Phresine would tell us that we must find it within ourselves to accept our limitations and learn to love them," his tone was teasing now, and his wooden hand was cool and smooth (and slippery with almond oil, she realized, thinking of his patient work with an amphora and a fine white cloth, oh) against her, "for in doing so we shall please the gods with our strength of character and earn their grace." He moved again against her, lightly, caressingly, his lips now at her nape, his living fingers stroking the thin skin along her collarbone, his breath warm and soporific as the fragrant incense in Idyll's temples. She felt as though her beating heart was at once as vast as the sea and as small and hard as an uncured olive and then Eugenides moved again and her limbs shook, and shuddering in her husband's arms, she was torn loose from the world's cares to drift on a cloud of bliss such as had been only hinted at in their marriage bed so far.

“You are treasure beyond any price,” he reminded her, still panting against her shoulder, hot as a coal against her, his sweet weight more dear to her than her own breath, “and I thank the gods for you.”

END

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the sterling McSwain! and the radiant K* for beta.
> 
> Meanwhile, Eugenides and Attolia: one of my absolutely favorite canon couples in any fandom. I was lucky to get the chance to take Eugenides for a spin (both of him! and may the gods think I did the two of him justice), and I have been secretly longing to write a temple story for Whalen's pantheon, so maybe you will like reading it as much as I liked writing it! I hope I was faithful to your request and that you are pleased with your story, Sour_Idealist! Thank you for the charming prompt and Yuletide opportunity. May you be blessed in your endeavors in this and all seasons!


End file.
